Cotton picking system and air filter for use in same



Oct. 13, 1936. s, CURLEY 2,057,369

COTTON PICKING SYSTEM AND AIR FILTER .FOR USE IN SAME 3 Sheets-Sheet Filed April 4, 1932 Oct. 13, 1936. 2,057,369

COTTON PICKING SYSTEM AND AIR FILTER FOR USE IN SAME R. S. CURLEY Filed April 4, 1952 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 MVE/VTOR T Oct. 13, 1936. R. s. CURLEY 2,057,369

COTTON PICKING SYSTEM AND AIR FILTER FOR USE IN SAME Filed April 4, 1932 3 Sheets-Sheet 3 INI/ENTO/R ATTORN .ZIIIZIZIII. :11.

Patented Oct. 13, 1936 I UNITED STATES- PATENT OFFICE COTTON PICKING SYSTEM AND AIR FILTER FOR .USE IN SAME Robert S Curley, Lowell, Mass., assignor to Sam- Lowell Shops, Boston, Mass., a corporation of Massachusetts Application April 4, 1932, Serial No. 603,032

9 Claims. (Cl.19-88) It is customary in a picker room to draw air conveying air-current by means of a condenser from the room into the heaters and condensers 4 at the end of said trunk and the cotton drops of the picking machines and to discharge the by gravity from the condenser onto the conveyor dust laden air into a dust room or at some point belt 2. Some features of the conveying means 5 outside the buildin In a typical picker instaljust described are better illustrated in Fig. 2. 5 lation approximately fifteen hundred cubic feet Since this arrangement is common in the textile of air are delivered per minute from a single industry, no detailed description of it is neces- .beater or condenser. Consequently, in cold sary. weather the loss of heat from this cause alone Referring to Fig. 2, itwill be seen that the is a very substantial item. Furthermore, while picker system there shown comprises a supply 10 picker rooms are not, usually humidified,- it is hopper 5 provided with the usual mechanism for very desirable that they should be. This fact feedingthe cotton automatically from this hopis now gaining recognition, but it is not feasible per to the beater'section 6 of the breaker unit, to humidify picker rooms with the present conand a condenser section I which takes the cotdensing and dust handling systems. ton from the beater and discharges it through 15 The present invention deals especially with feed rolls 8 to an intermediate hopper feeder 9. these conditions. It aims to devise a thoroughly The latter feeder, in turn, delivers the cotton practical arrangement for removing the dust to the beater section lllof a finisher lapper which from the air stream discharged from. any conalso includes-a condenser section l2 and a lapper denser, beater, or pneumatic cotton conveying head or calender head M for winding the picked 20 apparatus while conserving its heat and moisture web of cotton into the form of a lap. This syscontent, and at the same time preventing the tem may Deconstructed, arranged and operated creation of any serious resistance to the flow like that shown in my pending application Se-. of air. rial No. 363,586.

It is a fairly common experience in mills to As is well understood by those skilled in this 5 have a fire in the dust room, such fires occur art, cotton is carried away from abeater by a usually being caused by the presence of matches, current of air created by a suction blower, this pieces of metal, or some foreign material in the air current delivering the cotton to the condenser cotton fed to the heaters. Fires originating in where it is taken out of the air stream or sepathis manner sometimes assume very serious pro-. rated from it. Referring to the beater unit 6 3 portions and it is one of the objects of this inshown in Fig. 2, one of the gratings through vention to reduce the fire hazard involved in apwhich the air flows into the beater 6 is shown paratus of this type. .at l5, and the suction blower for creating the The nature of the invention will be readily uncurrent of air utilized in the beater 6 and conderstood from the following description when denser l is illustrated in dotted lines at Hi, this 35 read in connection with the accompanying drawblower being mounted on a shaft I! which is ings, and the novel features will be particularly belted to the beater shaft in the customary manpointed out in the appended claims. ner. Essentially the same construction is in-' In the drawings, cluded in the finisher section in connection with 40 Figure 1 is a plan view of apicker installation the beater Ill and condenser l2. v .40 embodying features of this invention; The entire arrangement so far described may Fig. 21s a side elevation of the installation be like that commonly used heretofore. shown in Fig. 1; The air discharged by the blowers carries with 'Fig. 3 is a perspective view of an air filter conit considerable dust and some cotton fiber, most 5 structed in accordance with this invention; and of the fiber being very short, and it has been Fig. 4 is a vertical, sectional view through the customary heretofore, as above stated, to delivpp r e e of the filter shown in Fi er this air to a dust room from which the air Fig. 1 illustrates diagrammatically two single finds its way into the atmosphere outside the process picker systems A andB of a well known mill. According to the present invention, how- 5 type, arranged in parallel, and both fed with ever, the air discharged by the blowers is 111- cotton automatically by a .Morton conveyor 2. tered and again'returned to the picker room so The cotton is delivered to the conveyor pneu that its moisture and heatcontent both are conmatically from the opening room, as is common served. in mill practice, incoming cotton being conveyed Referring again to Figs. 1 and 2 it will be seen through a wind trunk-3. It is separated from the that a conduit or wind trunk 20 conveys the air 55 duits 22 and 23 to two independent filters 24 and 25, respectively. Consequently, the air used in the heaters and condensers of both systems,

while taken from the picker room in the cus-' tomary manner is returned directly to the picker room again with its heat and moisture content substantially unchanged except for the desirable loss of moisture to the cotton conveyed by the air.

Essentially the same arrangement may be used with the pneumatic conveyor which carries the cotton from the opening room to the picker room. In fact, where the mill arrangement permits, the opening room and picker room may be so tied together from a standpoint of temperature and humidity conditions and air circulation that they may be regarded as a single room, essentially the same temperature and humidity being desirable in both. Where such an arrangement is used, air taken from the picker room may be discharged into the opening room, and vice versa, suitable provision being made for permitting the desired circulation of air between the two rooms. A proper degree of humidification may be maintained by any of the systems commonly used in this industry.

The provision of a filter which will satisfy the requirements of a system of this character has proved to be an exceptionally difflcult problem. Pneumatic separators such as those commonly used in a great variety of industries have not proved satisfactoryin separating the'finely divided particles of dust and fiber from the air stream discharged by the condenser blowers. It seems evident, therefore, .that some type of filter must be used as distinguished from centrifugal separators of the character at present available. Moreover, such a filter must be highly effective, while at the same time permitting a relatively free passage of the great volume of air therethrough so as to avoid any substantial increase in the power required to drive the blowers. The filter construction illustrated in Figs. 3 and 4 has been developed after a long series of experiments and has been found to satisfy the requirements above mentioned.

Important features of this filter reside in the arrangement of the screens, the peculiar structure of the layer of fibrous material deposited between them, and the manner in which this fibrous deposit is built up. The particular filter shown in Fig. 3 consists of five panels a, b, c, d and e, each including a frame, and all of these frames being secured together on an angle iron frame to form a box-like structure. Each panel in the embodiment of the invention illustrated in Figs. 3 and 4, includes an inner screen 21 and a second or outer screen section 28 spaced from the first screen by a relatively short distance, say for example, one-quarter of an inch. The inner may consist of wire screening of very coarse mesh, the meshes being, say, one-quarter of an inch or one-half an inch square, while the outer screen is much finer and has, for exp forty or fifty meshes to the inch. These screens perform very little, although an important part, of the filtering operation, but they hold between them a layer of fiber which is taken out of the air stream flowing through the filter and which performs most of the filtering action. When the filter is first installed and is started into operation, the current of air laden with fine dust and with some scattering or risidual fiber fiows very freely through the screens and some of the fine dust passes through with it. The fiber passes freely through the inner screen 21, but practically all of it is stopped by the second screen 28.v It is held against the latter screen by the action of the current of air in which it has been delivered. Additional fiber is deposited in this manner, some of the fibers wrapping around the wires of the coarse inner screen 21, while others pass freely through the meshes of the screen and are caught either by the second screen or by the layer of fiber previously deposited on it, until finally the entire space between the two screens is filled with fiber deposited in this manner. This fiber forms a filter sheet which is highly pervious to air but which is extremely effective in catching and holding additional fibers and the fine particles of dust carried by the air stream. Consequently, while the filtering action is somewhat faulty when the apparatus is first started into operation, in a very few minutes a filter sheet is built up in the manner above described between the screens and thereafter the filtering action is highly satisfactory, it being understood that it is not necessary to have the entire space between the two screens completely filled with fiber in order to filter the air properly for present purposes.

When the machinery is stopped at noon and again at night, the blowers, of course, are stopped and consequently, the pressure of the air which has held the fiber distributed over the surface of the inner screen is relieved. This fiber, therefore, and the dirt held in it simply fall away from the inner screen by gravity and drop to the bottom of the box. Consequently, the filter cleans itself due to the interruption in air flow. The filter sheet between the screens, however, is held in place by them against the action of gravity so that when the machinery is again started up an entirely satisfactory filtering action is maintained. I

Such a filter may be operated for several days without attention, but after a time the layer of fiber 30 between the screens becomes so loaded with fine dust that an undesirable degree of back pressure is created. The screen panels should gether by hinges, screws, or the like, before they are fastened to the angle iron frame by the bolts 3|. When the filter has been reassembled it is then ready to be'started into operation again in the manner above described.

It is desirable, also, to hinge one of the panels of the filter shown in Fig. 3, as for example the panel 11, and to provide a simple form of latch, such as that shown at 32, Fig. 3, for holding it closed so that this panel can be swung into an open position when the filter is not being used to permit the removal of the accumulation which drops down to the bottom of the box.

This invention thus makes it entirely feasible to humidify opening and picking rooms and re- .duces the heat losses which have heretofore been for controlling fire which originates in the beater and is carried through into thefilter.

Thefine mesh screen of the filter effectually prevents the flame from passing through it so that while smoke will come into the picker room, the flame will be.

} entirely confined to the interior of the filter vantage in the handling of other fibers. 60

where it can easily be extinguished. Since all of the parts of the filter are made of metal there is nothing inside the filter structure to support combustion except the materials strained out of the air. The invention, therefore, substantially reduces the fire hazard involved in the handling of the dust and the fine fiber discharged from the condensers.

As shown in Figs. 3 and 4, the screening surface is not continuous but is interrupted by nonscreening upright connecting members at the four corners of the screen structure. This arrangement has proved to be an advantage in causing the filter to clean itself automatically whenever the blowers are shut down. In other words, it has been found that if these non-screening areas in the corners are omitted or are made extremely narrow so that they are, in effect, omitted, the solid particles of fiber and dust filtered out of the air stream and which accumulateon the inner surface of the filter sheet will,

after a long period of operation, build up a continuous hollow structure composed of fiber and dust which may. under some circumstances, become self-sustaining. However, the non-screening sections at the corners of the filter structure, as illustrated in the drawings, interrupt the contln'uity of the fibrous filter cake that'collects on the inner surface of the filter and prevents it from becoming self-sustaining. Consequently, and since these accumulations require the pressureof the air screen on them to hold them against the filter sheet, they fall away from this sheet by gravity whenever the blowers are shut down and the air stream, as a result, is stopped. Such an arrangement, therefore, materially reduces the care and attention which otherwise would have to be given to the filter.

While I have herein shown and described a typical installation embodying this invention, it will be evident that the invention is susceptible of embodiment in a variety ofother forms. 'Also: that while the invention has been particularly described with reference to the requirements of cottonmachinery, it can also be used to ad- Consequently, the terms cotton or cotton fiber as room, conveying the cotton from the beater in a stream of said air taken from the picker room, condensing the cotton and thereby separating it from said air stream, filtering the air stream subsequent to said separation, and returning the filtered air to said picker room with its heat and moisture content substantially unchanged except for the loss of moisture to the cotton so handled.

2. In a system of the character described, the combination with a beater .and means for feeding cotton to said beater, of means for conveying,

the cotton away from said beater in a current of air, a condenser for separating most of the cotton from said air stream, and a filter into which the dust and fiber remaining in the air after. it passes through said condenser is discharged, said filter being constructed to utilize said remaining fiber in filtering said air stream and to confine within itself any fire started in or carried into the filter.

3. In a system of the character described, the combination with a beater and means for feeding cotton to said beater, of means for conveying ,the cotton away from said beater in a current of air, a condenser for separating practically all the cotton away from said heater in a current of air, a condenser for separating practically all of the cotton from said-current of air, and a filter structure comprising a metallic means for filtering the air discharged from said condenser a body of cotton to work it into a different form or condition, of means for conveying the cotton fiber in a stream of air, apparatus, for separating practically all of the cotton in said airstream from the air and the dustconveyed by said stream, and a filter structure comprising metallic means through which said air stream is conducted subsequently to its separation from the cotton and which is constructed to utilize the residual fiber in said air stream tobuild up a highly pervious, fibrous, filter sheet serving to remove the dust from the air stream, said filter structure and the air conveying means associated therewith being arranged to re-circulate the air so filtered for use again in conveying additional cotton, whereby the heat and moisture content of said air stream will be conserved.

6. In a system of the character described, the combination with mechanism for operating on a body of cotton to work it into a different form or condition, of means for. conveying the cotton fiber in a stream of air, apparatus for separating practically all of the cotton in said air stream from the air and the dust conveyed by said stream, and a filter structure comprising metallic means through which said air stream is conducted subsequently to its separation from the cotton and which is constructed to utilize the residual fiber in said air stream to'build up a highly pervious, fibrous, filter sheet serving to remove the dust from the air stream and so disposed that the pressure of said air stream is required to hold the accumulation of filtered solids against said sheet and such accumulations will fall away from said sheet by gravity whenever the air flow stops, said filter structure and the air conveying means associated therewith being arranged to recirculate the air so filtered for use again in conveying additional cotton, whereby the heat and moisture content of said air stream will be conserved.

7. In a cotton picking system, the combination with a plurality of picking units each including a heater and a condenser associated with it, of one or more air filters comprising metallic means each adapted to confine within itself any fire started in or carried into it, conduits for conducting the air discharged from said condensers into the said filter or filters, and externally of the machine, and means for creating a continuous circulation of air through said beaters, condensers and filter and returning the air to the picker room after it has been filtered.

8-. In a system of the character described, the combinationwith a heater unit for operatingon a stream of cotton fed into it and a condenser associated with said beater, of a filter structure comprising a metallic means, means for creating a flow of air through said beater, condenser and fi1ter, suitable conduits associated with said elements and said means to convey the air from said condenser to said filter and to produce a re-circulation of the filtered air through the system, said filter being constructed to utilize the residual fiber in said air stream to build up a highly pervious, fibrous filter sheet serving to remove the dust from the air stream and to maintain said sheet of an approximately constant thickness notwithstanding the removal therefrom of accumulations of material filtered out of said air stream.

9. That improvement in methods of picking cotton which consists in, beating the cotton and working it into a well opened fiufiy condition, humidifying the air in a substantially closed picker room, conveying the cotton so prepared in a stream of 'humidified air taken from the picker room, condensing the cotton and thereby separating it from said air stream, filtering the entire airstream used in the conveying and condensing operation, and returning the filtered air again to the picker room.

ROBERT S. CURLEY. 1 

